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Monday Mailing

Year 23 • Issue 11 28 November 2016 1.

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RDI Grant Helps Expand Juniper Industry in Wheeler County Parks: Not Just for Picnics 5 Ways to Overcome Barriers to Youth Engagement For Many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a Day of Mourning Violent Protests Mar Portland’s Essential Blueprint Colorado Resiliency Resource Center Sharing Community Success Stories - Wild Rivers Coast In a California Valley, Healthy Food Everywhere but on the Table Is It O.K. to Kill Cyclists?

Webinar - Digging Into the Benefits of Urban Agriculture: How Can and do Food Policy Councils Support Urban Ag? Tue, Nov 29, 2016 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM PST 11. Preservation Directory 1. RDI Grant Helps Expand Juniper Industry in Wheeler County RDI recently awarded business investment grants to small business owners in Wheeler County as part of our WealthWorks program.

Kendall Derby, owner of In the Sticks Juniper Sawmill in Fossil, and Jim Epley, owner of a habitat restoration business in Wheeler County, have been awarded WealthWorks grants to expand their businesses’ capacity to harvest, process, and sell milled and kiln-dried Western Juniper. The awards will not only help to support business expansion, but they will also benefit the region more widely.

Quote of the Week: “We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oregon Fast Fact: Some of the earliest rhinoceros fossils in the world were found in the John Day fossil beds.

Western Juniper is a native species in Central Oregon that grows throughout Wheeler County, and over the past century, it has begun to outcompete other native vegetation and interfere with the balance of the local ecology. Because harvesting Western Juniper in Central Oregon is critical for grassland restoration, there is a tremendous opportunity to create an income stream for the region by marketing Western Juniper as a sustainable wood product. Through RDI’s WealthWorks program, RDI and its partners look for solutions to expand economic opportunities for local industries, and ultimately build lasting community wealth. With additional equipment, Kendall Derby and Jim Epley will be able to expand their businesses and increase the viability of juniper harvesting and lumber production as a livelihood by addressing the issues of quality control, inventory management, and marketing, while helping to restore balance to the local ecology.

To access the full story, click here.

2. Parks: Not Just for Picnics For generations, parks were viewed simply as an amenity, a way to beautify a city. Whether they were planned for gardens, sports, or picnicking, parks were rarely seen as central to public safety and health.

But that is beginning to change.

As cities around the world continue their growth, the role of parks is shifting. Parks are no longer seen as something nice to have, but rather as a vital system within the city’s overall network of infrastructure. These Page 1 of 5

hard-working public spaces are probably the biggest untapped resource for cities in this century.

Why? Livable, sustainable cities must balance density with open space for the health of their residents, their environments, and their economies.

To access the full story, click here.

3. 5 Ways to Overcome Barriers to Youth Engagement The reality today is that most positions of power are held by adults. So this is our challenge to you – adults with any kind of power: take youth engagement to the next level. Many of you are already working to try to engage more young people, and no doubt this is a step in the right direction. But, you may be running across challenges you haven’t found solutions for yet. We’ve compiled a list of five common challenges, along with possible solutions you can implement right away.

It’s important to note that young people aren’t the only ones that might face some of these challenges. When you address these barriers, you’re being inclusive of many groups of people.

To access the full story, click here.

4. For Many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a Day of Mourning There is no “thanks” in Thanksgiving for most Native Americans, no turkey with all the fixings around a table filled with family and friends.

For many indigenous people in Greater Boston, the holiday is a day of mourning as they reflect on centuries of racism, genocide, and attempts to destroy their culture.

Just as there is no one Native American nation, there is no one way to mark the holiday. What to do on Thanksgiving is an individual decision often based on tribal history, personal experience, and family traditions.

Mahtowin Munro, who lives in Boston and is coleader of the United American Indians of New England, and Northeastern University student Thalia Carroll-Cachimuel of Watertown will join hundreds at the 47th National Day of Mourning in Plymouth on Thanksgiving Day. To access the full story, click here.

5. Violent Protests Mar Portland’s Essential Blueprint Thursday night, the rush of noise funneling down the Pearl District’s Lovejoy Avenue sounded like the gusts of a hurricane’s outer bands. The crescendo built as voices harmonized with the storm of feet moving past my residence. The melodic chant stirred me, raising my hopes and emotions after a dismal 48 hours.

Stepping out to my balcony, I was reminded of the scene from Dr. Zhivago where the physician/poet is uplifted by a protest against the Czar—until a troop of Cossacks attack. Violence broke my reverie as well when a brick crashed through a store window across the street. The jangle of shattering glass cut through the protestors’ chant like a knife. I was dumbstruck as windows and glass doors were smashed. A new chant broke out, “Peaceful Protest, Peaceful Protest,” but the damage was done.

Coming down to the street, I heard a neighbor cry out, “Shame, Shame.” Her instinctual response not only described the loss of property, it marked the loss of a heralded message. In a place designed

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for human movement, the ideal setting to make a glorious statement of a free people, miscreants with bricks and bats fueled Donald Trump’s incendiary charge that our “inner cities are in crisis.”

To access the full story, click here.

6. Colorado Resiliency Resource Center The COResiliency Resource Center is the online, interactive hub for resiliency knowledge and resources in Colorado. Through a variety of training modules and webinars, case studies, templates and model plans, grant information, etc., the Resource Center provides critical tools for communities and their stakeholders to integrate resiliency into every-day activities.

The Resource Center is aimed at a variety of audiences, including local government agencies, elected officials, community organizations, the private sector and individual resiliency champions.

To access this resource, click here.

7. Sharing Community Success Stories - Wild Rivers Coast The Wild Rivers Coast is featured in the latest Communities Powered by Travel video which highlights accomplishments community leaders have had as a result of participating in Oregon’s Rural Tourism Studio (RTS).

Nestled on Oregon’s South Coast, the Wild Rivers Coast includes the communities of Bandon, Brookings, Gold Beach, Langlois and Port Orford.

The RTS program is designed to assist rural communities in fostering sustainable tourism development. For the latest in this series, Travel Oregon, in collaboration with Write to Know Consulting and Maser Films, highlights how community members found power in regional collaboration and joined forces to develop tourism products in both outdoor recreation and culinary and agritourism.

Major regional success stories include the launch of the Wild Rivers Coast Farm Trail and the receipt of more than $350,000 in 2016 to support the expansion of two non-motorized trail projects in the region.

In addition to the video, three case studies developed by Write to Know Consulting are available at Industry.TravelOregon.com/WRCSuccess.

View their inspiring video and see more in the series.

Learn more about how to grow tourism in your community by visiting Industry.TravelOregon.com.

8. In a California Valley, Healthy Food Everywhere but on the Table SALINAS, Calif. — As Americans gather around Thanksgiving tables, chances are that the healthier parts of their menus — the tossed salads, broccoli casseroles or steaming bowls of roasted brussels sprouts — were grown here in the Salinas Valley.

A long strip of deep and fertile soil pinched by sharply rising mountains, the valley has more than doubled its output of produce in recent decades and now grows well over half of America’s leaf lettuce.

Yet one place the valley’s bounty of antioxidants does not often appear is on the tables of the migrant workers who harvest it.

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Public health officials here describe a crisis of poverty and malnutrition among the tens of thousands of farmworkers and their families who tend to the fields of lettuce, broccoli, celery, cauliflower and spinach, among many other crops, in an area called the salad bowl of the nation To access the full story, click here.

9. Is It O.K. to Kill Cyclists?

EVERYBODY who knows me knows that I love cycling and that I’m also completely freaked out by it. I got into the sport for middle-aged reasons: fat; creaky knees; the delusional vanity of tight shorts.

Registering for a triathlon, I took my first ride in decades. Wind in my hair, smile on my face, I decided instantly that I would bike everywhere like all those beautiful hipster kids on fixies. Within minutes, however, I watched an S.U.V. hit another cyclist, and then I got my own front wheel stuck in a streetcar track, sending me to the pavement.

I made it home alive and bought a stationary bike trainer and workout DVDs with the ex-pro Robbie Ventura guiding virtual rides on Wisconsin farm roads, so that I could sweat safely in my California basement. Then I called my buddy Russ, one of 13,500 daily bike commuters in Washington, D.C. Russ swore cycling was harmless but confessed to awakening recently in a Level 4 trauma center, having been hit by a car he could not remember. Still, Russ insisted I could avoid harm by assuming that every driver was “a mouth-breathing drug addict with a murderous hatred for cyclists.”

To access the full story, click here.

10. Webinar - Digging Into the Benefits of Urban Agriculture: How Can and do Food Policy Councils Support Urban Ag? Tue, Nov 29, 2016 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM PST Growing interest in urban agriculture is inspiring widespread attention from gardeners to policymakers alike, across municipalities and states. Food policy councils play an important role in assisting urban agriculture efforts by advocating for legislation, funding and other resources, as well as through educational support for urban food producers.

Tune in to this webinar to learn about how to frame the benefits of urban agriculture to policymakers and the public based on evidence from Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future’s review of the existing academic research. Hear from food policy councils in Kansas City, Missouri and Oakland, California about how they are making progressive changes to support urban farmers through urban agriculture zones and tax incentives and by promoting racial and social inclusivity.

To register for this webinar, click here.

11. Preservation Directory Welcome to the grant and fundraising guide for historic and cultural resource preservation. With so many resources available, our goal is to bring these great financial resources together in one place for the benefit of the preservation community.

Unfortunately, most funding and grant programs are available for not-for-profit organizations only.

However, we have identified resources available to those seeking funding for projects related to their primary residence.

Below you will find resources and programs offered by government agencies and not-for-profit organizations: 

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National Park Service National Trust for Historic Preservation Other Federally-Funded Resources Privately-Funded Grants, Scholarships & Fellowships Funding Sources for Those Restoring Primary Residence General Resources for Grant & Fundraising Seekers

To access the directory, click here.

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